Known methods for measuring the health of a network typically focuses on hardware performance, data rates, link errors and data packet loss, for example. These methods neglect to analyze the responsiveness of critical, high level system functions, e.g., the software running on the network devices. Degradation in performance of software can impact network performance as readily as hardware switching failures, for example. The incomplete data provided by known analysis tools does not permit a full analysis of the health of the devices or system under test, leaving too much room for judgment errors. Moreover, tests that are currently in use employ passive observations of network systems. In other words, the network systems are monitored or analyzed in the course of their normal operation, or controlled to operate under normal conditions. This does not provide a complete picture of the system in situations that are abnormal.